Economic Anxiety Shadows State of the Union

Richard Norton Smith, presidential historian at the University of Kansas, joins The News Hub to preview of Tuesday night's State of the Union speech from President Barack Obama. Photo: AP.

By

Gerald F. Seib

Updated Feb. 11, 2013 8:56 p.m. ET

Four times, President
Barack Obama
has stood in the well of the House of Representatives and delivered a State of the Union address—and four times, economic anxieties have largely overshadowed his efforts to push a broad agenda.

Tuesday night he makes his fifth such address—the State of the Union that will help define his second term. While the economy is improving and the mood in Washington is changing in significant ways, the story line isn't all that different: A broader Obama agenda is fighting to break out, but the economy still hangs over all else.

WSJ reporters Neil King, Colleen McCain Nelson and Laura Meckler swap reporting leads and predictions on the big themes of Barack Obama's State of the Union address, including the budget showdown, climate change and fixing the immigration system.

To be sure, Mr. Obama has more on his mind: Immigration overhaul, gun control and climate change are the topics most discussed since his re-election. The president will say he plans a trip to the Middle East, putting him in the company of Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Bush, who all tried to crack the code on the Palestinian problem in a second term.

WSJ's Jerry Seib discusses the four key items he will be watching for from President Obama in Tuesday's State of the Union speech.

And yet White House officials are signaling that the core of the speech will focus on ways to spur the economy and job creation. Mr. Obama was criticized by Republicans for not making jobs the centerpiece of his second inaugural address last month; it appears he won't leave himself open to that critique this time.

In a sense, the story of Mr. Obama's State of the Union addresses are the story of his presidency thus far in capsule form. To read back over his first four is to be struck by how much the economic crisis that met the Obama administration at the front door has hung over it throughout.

His first inaugural, in 2009, was, as you would expect, laden with prescriptions for addressing the recession ravaging the economy: stimulus spending and bank rescue funds, the beginnings of financial regulatory changes.

In subsequent years, other Obama initiatives were floated—revising the immigration system, corporate and personal tax overhauls, a big push on clean energy, spending on infrastructure, deficit reduction—only to shrink or fade amid economic worries and spending and tax fights that sucked the oxygen out of the room.

The notable exception was the 2009 and 2010 drive to overhaul health care, which came to fruition, at the price of escalated partisan warfare and, most likely, damage for Democrats at the ballot box. Last year, Mr. Obama called for both parties to "lower the temperature in this town," a plea that fell by the wayside on the road to the 2012 presidential election.

ENLARGE

President Barack Obama
Reuters

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Now, Mr. Obama begins the fifth year of his presidency and he will address a nation that still hasn't shaken off the effects—the pain of joblessness, the lingering fears of an economy not quite healthy—of the biggest shock in three-quarters of a century.

Mr. Obama overcame those fears to win a second term, but it was easy to see them bubbling back to the surface in last month's Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Asked what one thing they would tell the president as he begins his second term, respondents' top responses were "create jobs" and "fix the economy."

More telling, when pollsters asked Americans whether the year ahead would be a time of opportunity and expansion for their families, or a time to hold back and save for harder times ahead, 60% said it would be a time to hold back.

Another problem is lurking. Washington itself is adding to Americans' economic anxieties. Just over half of those in the Journal/NBC News poll said recent budget negotiations between the president and congressional Republicans left them less confident about economic improvement. In Americans' eyes, political fights aren't merely failing to resolve economic problems, they are making them worse.

Here is one place where the situation may have changed. There is a palpable sense that the capital, though still highly polarized, has grown weary of endless budget wars.

Last week, Rep. Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican, gave an important speech in which he said he wanted to shift attention to "what lies beyond these fiscal debates"—to other areas where, he argued, conservative policies can make life better for average American families.

That speech was an indication that Washington may be ready to move its economic debate to higher ground. Tuesday night, we will see whether Mr. Obama can use his fifth State of the Union to continue the trend.

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